Businesses need creative frameworks that support people in building empathy. Works Progress Agency designs custom tools, activities, and engagement exercises with a human centered approach.

Our interactive methods include individual and group work, facilitated dialogue exercises, and a variety of creative activities including the use of photography, writing, video, and other types of visual communication.

What we do:

Observe and identify patterns of conflict to facilitate better approaches

Create alternate platforms to improve internal communication

Evaluate businesses and organizations for internal reflection of mission and values alignment

Produce visual communication representing various perspectives on work experience

Help organizations and businesses aestheticize their mission, vision and values

Together we will build a Company Culture Handbook that your workplace can use as a tool for team building, demonstrating company culture, and onboarding. This book will capture the most valuable elements of your workplace culture for existing staff and new employees moving forward.

Solve a real need, problem, or question within your company through a 4-week crash course in Design Thinking. We teach on-site, Human-Centered Design classes to help companies evolve their research methods, and build pathways for creative innovation by visualizing problems and solutions.

Storytelling is a powerful tool to reveal conflicts lurking below the surface. Our creative workshop facilitation is designed to engage many learning styles, and help you build a culture of care and respect at work.

What we do:

Support employees to share stories through creative, guided techniques

Meet your group where you are with accessible curriculum

Gather diverse and real perspectives

Discover true gender equity dynamics

Generate paths toward improved culture of respect

Build-in accountability through a scheduled follow-up

Optional Add-on: Development of Strategic Gender Equity Plan

Our Story

Works Progress Agency emerged from a single, incredible project. We proposed to create an installation in the lobby of the Portland Building, which houses municipal offices of the city. As socially engaged artists, we are always interested in relationships and in this case we were wondering about people’s personal relationships and how they intersected with their professional relationships.

We decided to ask workers in the office building a provoking question, Who do you consider your "chosen family"? and then invited them to come to the installation with the people they identified to be photographed together. People brought roomates, husbands, wifes, lovers, partners, and interestingly, many people chose to be photographed with their colleagues.

As people posed for their photograph they watched as they loosened up, started laughing and told stories, and even cried. After the photo sessions, participants were given an opportunity to write a short reflection. We installed these photos in lobby of the building giving both workers and passersby the opportunity to see each other in a personal light. This illumination allowed for a more authentic connection, and created a space for people to understand each other in ways that aren’t typical of a workplace environment.

We realized that provoking dialogue, reflection, and visualizing this process in the workspace could help people build empathy and better communication. And these experiences produce richer and more interactive workplace culture.